From Dorene....

Dorene and I are on the phone and she wanted to share a couple of things with you...  One, is that she is taking a small break from treatment decisions until Memorial Day.  She has some living life things going on in May and she's working on recovering from the treatments she's already gone through by eating healthy, taking her vitamins, resting and when able working in the yard and soaking up some sunshine.

Dorene has a quote from one of her favorite shows "Grey's Anatomy" that really resonated with her about the journey of dealing with cancer.

"In surgery, the healing process begins with a cut.
An incision.
The tearing of flesh.
We have to damage the healthy flesh in order to expose the unhealthy.
It feels cruel and against common sense.
But it works.
You risk exposure for the sake of healing.
And when it's over.
Once the incision has been closed.
You wait.
You wait and hope your patient will heal.
That you haven't in fact, just made everything worse."

One of the reasons this resonates so much with Dorene is that after she finished radiation and she was all burned and hurting she was thinking... "What have I done?"  "I can't believe I've let them do this to me again."  But now... weeks after the last radiation treatment where every day in between made it feel like a big mistake... Dorene sees that it has helped.  That she can put her hand on her stomach and not cringe from the masses of lumps sitting beneath.  And she feels the same about the chemo experience.